Monday, May 25, 2015

Canoga Park Celebrates Memorial Day! Part III

Hey, it's KITT! Knight Industries, designer of this car of the future, abandoned the advanced automotive
technologies field in the late 1980s and focused on the lucrative area of banquet & reception halls instead.

Canoga Park's own Our Lady of the Valley School had one of the most highly decorated trucks
in the parade and was flanked by the ever-peppy Crusaders cheer squad. Rah! Rah! Rah!

International Taekwondo College of West Hills put on some great demonstrations
along the parade route. And hey, is that "Jurassic World" star Chris Pratt, making
an uncredited parade appearance as his "Parks & Rec" alter-ego Johnny Karate?

Here come the Fab Girls of the San Fernando Valley, based out of the Winnetka Recreation Center.

They put on quite a show, dancing to the music of the 1940s — perfect for Memorial Day.

Sharp-looking cadets from North Valley Military Institute, an LAUSD
charter school founded in 2013, were proud to march in today's parade.

It's worth noting that the West Valley Eagles were the champions in the 2014
Valley Youth Conference soccer clinic, but not in the banner-carrying clinic.

Wells-Fargo's famous stagecoach traveled the parade route, and everyone who waved at
the passing horse-drawn carriage automatically had an account opened in his or her name.

The Canoga Park Improvement Association saluted and honored our vets with an elaborate display
featuring a larger than life pair of boots, rifle, helmet and dog tags, plus a panel featuring artwork of
these same items as they looked in wars across the last century, from World War I to Afghanistan.

Did you know?™ Before the parade began, spectators were treated to a stirring rendition of God Bless America, as well as some brief speeches, rousing audience warm-up and a few announcements, from the starting point of the parade at Owensmouth and Sherman Way. One such announcement pleaded with the audience to please stay off of the street and on the sidewalk for safety and so that everyone could enjoy the passing show.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule: Parade vendors, hander-outers of free political combs and religious postcards, and unwashed drifters in their late 20s riding bicycles against the flow of the parade were among those not affected by this pronouncement.

Visiting dignitaries, too, were afforded wider latitude and not held to the same standard as locals, such as this family of ambassadors from an area northeast of Canoga Park, who came to applaud the Chatsworth Chiefs Cheerleading squad, and held court well beyond the edge of the sidewalk, blocking the view for all behind them, but offering those same spectators a marvelous demonstration of the cultures and behavior of nearby communities. Diplomatic protocol granted them complete immunity from confinement to their chairs or the curb like everyone else — and Canoga Park is all the richer for it. Hey, thanks for coming!

Here's some patriotic fellas from the American Legion, Van Nuys, Post 193.

Canoga Park Elks Lodge 2190 supports our veterans, you better believe it. They also have the
best reception/banquet facilities in all of Canoga Park, and actually know how to manage such
an enterprise, unlike certain other Canoga Park organizations that rent out their clubhouses.

Spectators, many of them fans of the benevolent Elks Club, had no trouble spotting this Elks
Club vehicle in the parade — it was the one with the official Elks Club mascot on top: a pig.

Saban Entertainment in conjunction with Hallmark Cards used the parade to give us all a
first look at the costumes for their much-anticipated Power Rangers / Rainbow Brite comb-
ination reboot and mashup. "Rainbow Rangers" will be debuting on ABC Family this fall.

...Although there are some who insist what we were watching was instead the ENAF-USA dancers,
putting on a display of the traditional Bolivian dance, the Caporales, which depending on the source,
can be translated as either "the dance of the mismatched shoes" or "the shoulder pad shimmy."

Oh, there's more! You don't have to click on them all, but maybe you should think about what it would be like living in a country where you don't have the freedom to click on anything you like. Or worse, Reseda.